Possible John Goodman DUI Defense: A Barn Drink After Fatal Crash

Any seasoned drunkard knows the drill: If you're in a car accident and you've been partying, go have another beer. By the time the cops test your breath, they won't be able to prove when you had the offending drink.

On the morning of February 12, after spending the night drinking with friends and then crashing his Bentley into another car on a dark Wellington road, Goodman left the accident scene on foot. In his cowboy boots and jeans, he tromped south on 120th Avenue

The barn is a sort of "man cave," according to Kampsen. It's got an office, a TV, and a stocked bar. Goodman had never visited the barn before, although he had practiced polo on Kampsen's fields. That morning, he went to the barn searching for Kampsen, and for a phone.

"I went upstairs thinking that was where you live," Goodman told Kampsen later, according to Kampsen's sworn interview with investigators. "I kept thinking it was weird that you didn't have a bedroom up there, and I didn't know where you were."

At first, he was hesitant to call the authorities, because he admitted to Pembleton that he "had drank a few."

"He had asked me if I thought that he sounded or acted like he was under the influence," Pembleton told sheriff's investigators.

Eventually, Pembleton convinced Goodman to call 911. But by the time help arrived, 23-year-old Scott Wilson had drowned, his Hyundai capsized in a drainage ditch at the scene of the crash.

Here' the twist: Pembleton doesn't drink at all, so she couldn't have given Goodman a cocktail to calm his nerves. But a few weeks later, when Kampsen and Goodman were having dinner in Miami, Goodman brought up the subject of booze and the night of the crash.

"Do you still have alcohol in your barn?" Goodman asked Kampsen. Now why would a man facing a DUI charge ask a question like that?

"I took it to mean as if, like, I'd thrown everything out or not," Kampsen said.

Exactly. Because if Kampsen still had a stocked bar in his barn, then Goodman could have swiped a swig of tequila the morning of the crash. His blood wasn't tested until three hours after the crash, long after he visited the barn. By then, his blood alcohol level was 0.177 percent, more than twice the legal limit.

Witnesses saw Goodman drinking at the Players Club Bar & Restaurant shortly before the crash, but who can say for sure when he got drunk?